On October 23rd the whole of Wales went into a short fire break lockdown at 6pm precisely, this followed the local lockdown that had been put in place on September 28th at 6pm precisely. I wont turn this in to a political rant or debate as quite frankly I think that everyone I know is heartily sick of hearing about it. We have had to stop Jack watching the news as it was causing an increase in his anxiety, and he has been doing so well I don’t want him to become unwell again. Mind you I am not sure how much he really understands as his first comment upon hearing the news was “oh FFS I have got lockdown hair again”, he really hasn’t ,but clearly its a concern for the young and trendy young man that he is. So instead I thought that I would just share some examples of the daily chaos in the hope that it may help, or at the very least put a smile on someones face.

Jack is now in his third week of being at home, as his day service was forced to close a little earlier. Trying to keep him occupied whilst I work from home can be a little tricky, he joins in as many online meetings as he can (he just says hello, tells people that they have a big nose/ big head etc , then he tells them that he loves them and goes about his business) I am sure that I have mentioned previously that I work with some lovely people who are quite happy to say hello to him. Now we have always instilled a work ethic into both our kids, we tell Jack that he goes to day service to do all the important things that he does there, I mean he wont ever be capable of undertaking paid or unpaid work but we want him to have a sense of purpose, with this in mind I asked him to help with some cleaning which he was delighted to do. However I did not think this through, he has mopped the floor of the wetroom by throwing water around and slapping it about with a mop, I think that Ian and I are the only people to actually slip on slip resistant flooring, oh and if you get too close he will also slap you with the mop. He has taken to polishing every single surface in the house, unbeknown to either of us, he had polished the hall floor with furniture polish, luckily Clive was in bed, however poor Ian came home oblivious to the highly polished laminate and the poor sod was like Robin Cousins out there (he only has one foot), after scoring him a 6 for a fairly mediocre Axel I helped him up whilst trying to stifle a laugh. As the evening wore on we became aware of other things that he had polished, we couldn’t work out why the cats failed to gain purchase on items of furniture or why little socks was like Eddie the Eagle on the window sill, until Ian ran his finger along it and came away with a finger like Tony Montana. The highlight of the day was when we couldn’t open the door to Jacks bedroom, Jack proudly announced “see muvva? I have been polishing my knob”, we quickly discovered that he had indeed polished every door knob in the house!

A few days later Jack did a spectacular SLOS style vomit in our wetroom, now my fellow parents of children and young people with Smith Lemli Opitz Syndrome can attest to the fact that people with SLOS can vomit like nothing on Earth, I mean it is a sight to behold and can be caused by absolutely anything. We are still not sure if it was excitement or if he had eaten shower gel again, but it was a major clean up. So as Ian is mopping the walls and ceiling (I kid you not) I am trying to catch Mr Man, who is by now strutting around in his underpants whilst proudly declaring himself “the honk meister”.

We have also has an accusation that Ruby our female dog was “barking at her bollocks” and a nasty case of the same dog standing on Jacks “tentacles” as he was trying to deal with a “wedgie”. Oh and when we were driving somewhere, the song Lip up Fatty came on my Spotify list, cue Jack full on pogo dancing in the passenger seat.

There was also the incident where a very tall, very slim man came to our door, he was wearing a face mask and did have bulbous eyes. But I still think Jack saying “and you can f**k off Peter Crouch” was a little harsh.

Today a delivery driver came to the door to deliver a bottle of lemon vodka that I had ordered on line, now they deliver alcohol here sometimes (ok quite a bit) so our usual delivery driver knows that adults live here, they have seen our ID. But today the person was new, they insisted that Ian show them his ID (he doesn’t have any at the moment as it is with a solicitor who is helping us to deal with probate) anyway I digress. I was in a work meeting upstairs and couldn’t be disturbed, Jack was out with support staff for his permitted walk, so Clive joined Ian on the doorstep, wearing her Christmas trousers, Blizzard of Ozz tshirt, clutching Hammy the talking hamster and glowering at him from beneath her hair. The driver then asked if Clive could sign for it. Ian told them that she was 16, cant read or write and has no capacity to understand what she is signing for (I have always felt that Clive was more of an Aldi Taurus type drinker anyway). The delivery driver got a little shirty that they had to return later and deal with a grown up. Now, I completely understand that they have a job to do, there is a process to follow. But honestly? Ian is a 60 year old man, he has white hair and a face like a ball bag, he hardly looks like a teenage delinquent.

And on that note I am going to sign off and maybe have a glass of the vodka that was delivered later. Obviously I wont be sharing with Ian the teenage dirtbag.

Stay safe xx